


Or Like This

by significantowl



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Authors, Bloggers - Freeform, Bookstores, Canon Disabled Character, Ficlet Collection, Kissing, Lube, M/M, Owls, Sexual Content, Underwear, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-04 16:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3073976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/significantowl/pseuds/significantowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlets and snippets from <a href="http://significantowl.tumblr.com">my tumblr</a>. All Charles/Erik.</p><p>7. As he reaches for the book, other fingers that aren't his reach for it as well, and they each take firm possession of one quarter of the spine.<br/>6. Charles had been pushed into the crack between the pillows for the last bloody time.<br/>5. "Charles! Where did I leave my armored briefs?”<br/>4. If only Charles could reach a little farther, then he could kiss Erik properly.<br/>3. "Well, that's the last time we order so many bottles of <i>that</i>."<br/>2: Erik hadn't known that Charles...<br/>1: The worst thing about being a were-owl.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Worst Thing About Being a Were-Owl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Garrideb's prompt: The worst thing about being a were-owl was..

The worst thing about being a were-owl was the hell it played on his teaching schedule; three days out of every month, Charles could only hold night classes, and even though teenagers were supposedly creatures of the small hours themselves, at one o’clock in the morning it was hard to get much of anything from them but bleary stares.

Being an owl had no ill effects on the lessons themselves, Charles was quite sure. The edge of his low podium was nicely beveled for perching, and telepathy meant that getting his instruction across when his mouth wasn’t properly shaped for speaking English - or any other language for that matter - was no trouble at all. But his wings were always itching to take flight, and most nights he left the children behind long before dawn, swooping high and fast above the trees, wind streaming against his face.

On the best of nights, Erik glided beside him, cape billowing wide as Charles’ wings, their bodies throwing shadows of power and grace on the earth far below.


	2. Knowledge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Capriccio's prompt: Erik hadn't known that Charles...

Erik hadn't known that Charles would gasp so loudly or flush so prettily when Erik’s lips traveled from his ear to his throat to his chest; he hadn’t known that Charles’ power would unfurl like a deep ocean wave, swelling high and long, rising, rising, until Charles’ shoulders dug hard into the mattress and the wave broke and Erik was left gasping himself.

He hadn’t known how much he would want to linger. He hadn’t known how good it would feel to drown.


	3. Too Much of That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Red's prompt: "Well, that's the last time we order so many..."

"Well, that's the last time we order so many bottles of  _that,_ " Erik said, glaring into the cabinet beneath the bathroom sink.

"Bottles of what?" Charles called from the bedroom, and then, "Oh," suggesting he’d had a mental peek and knew exactly what  _that_  was.

The last days of the year could be minefield enough, scattered through with thoughts of promises unkept and goals unreached and wishes left lingering in the dark. And now there was this failure, years in the making, leaping up out of the blue.

"We only ordered in bulk because you wanted the discount," Charles said. He’d wheeled into the doorway now, and looked annoyingly serene, his blue robe crossed neatly over his chest. It was soft and velvety and Erik had planned on taking advantage of that fact in relation to Charles’ nipples later. "It wasn’t because we sat down and decided, ‘This is how much sex we’re going to have over the next few years.’"

Still. 

Three unused bottles.

They were better than that.

"You’d still use it if you hadn’t seen the date," Charles said, in the tone of a man who had never bothered to clean out a kitchen pantry, not once, not ever. "What do you think expired lube is going to do to your areshole, anyway?

Charles let the word  _arsehole_  curl off his tongue in just the right way, unfailing proper and unflinchingly specific, but for once it did nothing for Erik. He said, “Hold out your hand.”

"Well," Charles said a moment later, poking at the gluey, congealed mess in his palm. "Point well made. I guess you’re getting sucked tonight," he added, perfect emphasis on the  _sucked,_ and suddenly it felt like the only goal worth reaching, and reach it they did.


	4. Reach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Shayzgirl's prompt: If only he could reach a little farther, then he could...

If only he could reach a little farther, then he could kiss Erik properly, cup his jaw and nip at his lips, quickly at first, drawing Erik in, then long and slow, a rhythm that asked a question and staked a claim, and Erik’s _yes_ would thrum from his body and sing from his mind.

But Charles knows how far he can stretch these days without over-balancing, so he curves his lips softly and holds out a hand, and when Erik closes the distance, the answer rings sweet before he even begins.


	5. Erik's Armored Briefs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Kageillusionz's prompt: "Charles! Where did I leave my..."

"Charles! Where did I leave my armored briefs?”

Charles looked up from his book (somewhat regretfully, it had to be said, it was getting quite good). “Are you asking me because you think I may have seen them, or because you want me to have a rummage around and find out for certain?”

Erik knew just what he meant by _a rummage around_ , of course, and gestured impatiently at his head.

But Charles wasn’t in such a hurry. Erik was fresh from the shower, a towel wrapped around his narrow waist, water slow-dripping down his chest. Erik asking for armored anything was never a prelude to anything good, and the fact that he was asking, _and_ inviting Charles on a stroll through his mind meant that what he was really looking for was an argument about whatever scheme lurked therein.

Charles had better ideas.

He set down his book. “You’ll have to come closer than that,” he lied quite transparently, and when Erik did, anchored his hands on Erik’s hips, palms pressing inwards. 

"Getting a handle on where I had them last?" Erik asked, voice dry, but the curve of his lips and the sudden spark in his thoughts betrayed him.

"I think it’s worth checking that they’ll even fit," Charles said, sliding his hands into the fold of the towel to weigh the heavy base of Erik’s cock. He knew where Erik’s glorified cup was by now - stuck between the dresser and the wall, where only Erik’s subconscious remembered dropping it one night when he’d felt Charles come wheeling in - but this, certainly, was where Erik belonged, Charles’ heart and his hands protection enough.

"They definitely won’t if you keep doing that," Erik said, and Charles dragged a slow hand up to his tip, and did it again, and again.


	6. Between the Pillows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Velvetcadence's prompt: Charles had been pushed into...

Charles had been pushed into the crack between the pillows for the last bloody time. He shifted his hands, which had been squeezing encouragingly at Erik’s arse, up to Erik’s shoulders; he locked his elbows, holding Erik still.

"Open your eyes, if you don’t mind," he said, because Erik hadn’t managed it yet, though his brow was all creased up and confused. "Must you always thrust at an angle?"

"You  _like_ it when I thrust at an angle,” Erik said, belligerent in the way that meant he was actually extremely contrite. “I know your noises.”

"You do," Charles said, busy considering logistics: easier to push himself up and back squarely onto the pillow, or drag it beneath him where he was?  _Drag_ was the obvious answer, because  _drag_ meant Erik’s hips and Erik’s cock could stay firmly locked in place, and as it so happened, Erik wasn’t wrong. That angle was a  _delight_.

"I’m going online and buying one of those body pillows tomorrow," Charles murmured, "for the head of this bed," and when he’d finished resettling, felt Erik’s lips press sweetly to his temple before Erik went back to work, and things got very noisy indeed.


	7. Encounters in Bookstores

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Luninosity's prompt: As he reaches for the book, other fingers that aren't his reach for it as well, and--

As he reaches for the book, other fingers that aren't his reach for it as well, and they each take firm possession of one quarter of the spine. Someone else might let go at once, an automatic politeness, but deference isn’t in Erik’s nature, nor does it seem to be in this man’s either. Erik’s slim fingers and the man’s blunter, calloused ones stay locked in place, even as the man smiles.

He sits in a wheelchair that Erik’s senses approve of, sleek and strong with well-connected parts. It’s well-made, and the man is well-made too: a firm, defined chest beneath a fitted navy button-down, capable hands, a strong nose, and in beautiful contrast, incredibly soft-looking lips that are still smiling.

“I don’t actually want to buy it,” the man says. “But whenever I see a copy at a used bookshop, I simply have to look inside. See if there are notes in the margins. If the pages are worn and handled, or pristine.” He laughs self-deprecatingly. “I wrote it, you see.”

“You should do what I do,” Erik says, withdrawing his hand. “Write online. You won’t have to skulk in used bookstores to find out what your audience thinks. Trust me.”

“ _Skulk_ ,” the man - Charles Xavier, according to the book’s spine - says, face lighting up as he takes faux offense. Does it always light up so easily? Normally Erik would be irritated by the naiveté and baseline contentment with the world that implied; instead, he’s irritated by the fact that he rather hopes it does. Xavier continues, “Do we write in the same field, then? Do I know you?“”

"I write about mutant issues, yes.” He gestures towards Xavier’s tome. “But as an activist, not a theorist.”

Xavier tilts his head. “A strong scientific backbone is key to any sustainable, long-term shift in human thought,” he says, and Erik would have come back with, ‘Yes, I know, you may have noticed I was reaching for your work,’ but instead he has to snap -

“I’m more interested in mutant thought.”

Xavier sighs. “I meant the term as an all-encompassing one for the society we share on this planet -“

”- Which would’ve gotten your comment immediately deleted from my blog,” Erik finishes.

“It sounds as if I should offer my comments in person, then,” Xavier says, and damn him if those lips aren’t curving again. “Do you post weekly?”

“Sundays. Erik Lehnsherr on mutantbrotherhood dot com.”

Xavier _beams_ , a ray of light in the dusty old shop. “Sundays,” he repeats. “A lovely day for a cappuccino at the coffeeshop next door, would you agree?”

There are many reasons Erik says yes. One is the sweet curl of hope twisting almost tangibly through Xavier’s veil of confident charm; Erik feels it more than hears it, and it makes his heart beat quick. Another is wrapped up in the curve of Xavier’s lips.

Erik leaves the shop with three things, only one of which he could have possibly expected: a book tucked under his arm, a phone number written inside in neat, looping script, and a smile creeping over his own lips, warm enough to banish the winter chill outside

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Drowning (the knowledge is not wisdom remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4174659) by [isabeau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabeau/pseuds/isabeau)




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